


Nice is as Nice Does

by phresine



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Not Epilogue Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 14:06:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4749143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phresine/pseuds/phresine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But even a nice Malfoy is a Malfoy up to no good. Nothing else can explain the thrill strumming in Harry's fingertips, or the hum of anticipation in his gut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nice is as Nice Does

Harry had expected some kind of run-in with Malfoy before Eighth Year began. That would have been the gauge stick, Harry thought. The marker that proved that everything was over, that Voldemort was dead, that Dumbledore was dead, that never again would he speak to Sirius, Remus, Fred on this side of the Veil; that those years of his life were over and done, and a new school year was beginning.  
  
They didn’t cross paths in Diagon Alley, though Harry kept his ears peeled the entire time he and the Weasleys were in Flourish & Botts. They didn’t meet in King’s Cross, where Ginny peeled away from him with a rueful smile as she headed in the direction of Michael Corner. There was no tell-tale flash of white-blond hair on the Hogwart's Express, even when Harry excused himself to walk up and down the carriage corridors, just to get away from Hermione and Ron making eyes at one another. Nor when the Express pulled into Hogsmeade Station, and he, Ron, and Hermione boarded the same threstral-driven carriage as Luna and Neville.  
  
It wasn't until he had reached the double doors to the Great Hall for the Welcoming Feast that he finally laid his eyes on Malfoy for the first time after the Trials.  
  
Harry hadn't given much thought to what he'd do when he and Malfoy met again. He had some vague notion of the two of them standing in awkward silence on the stands at Madame Malkins', or crossing wands on the Hogwart's Express, just for old time's sake.  
  
He hadn’t expected Malfoy to hang back, nodding at Harry with a grimace of a smile that spoke of little good, gesturing for Harry to walk on in ahead of him; for Harry’s own hackles to rise with a sense of suspicion he’d thought long forgotten, and a thrill running through his stomach; or for the two of them to be caught at a standstill until Professor Vector swept through, and then swept Malfoy away with a, “Mr Malfoy, there you are -- Horace sent me to have a word with you about your timetable -- ”  
  
And then Malfoy, pale face and odd behaviour both, disappeared behind a wall of students.  
  
\--  
  
“The ferret probably just didn’t want you where he couldn’t see you,” Ron said. “The coward.”  
  
“I bet he’s just trying to ingratiate himself, as he always does," Hermione said, equally dismissive. “Just ignore him. In any case, we'll be far too busy with NEWTs to pay Malfoy any attention.”  
  
\--  
  
Except that Eighth Years, those scant few Seventh Years that had chosen to repeat their final year of schooling, had been combined into the one class, irrespective of House. Which meant Malfoy was in every one of Harry’s classes. Defence Against the Dark Arts, Potions, Transfigurations, Charms, Herbology -- it sent a rush of blood to Harry's head and that thrill through his stomach every time he walked into a classroom and saw Malfoy's pale, pointed features sitting at the back of the room.  
  
“This is ridiculous,” said Ron, who was taking the same classes as Harry, with similar ambitions of being accepted into the Auror program. "How am I meant to study with Malfoy's ugly mug everywhere?"  
  
“He’s in every one of mine, too,” Hermione said, drawing up her study timetable. They sat at the table nearest the fire in Gryffindor common room, the fire flickering warmth over their faces. The rest of the house were variously straggling in the comfortable seats around the room, or making their way up the tower stairs to bed. "And I'm taking all the same NEWTs as you two, as well as Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, and Muggle Studies."  
  
"What's Malfoy doing, taking Muggle Studies," Harry said, incredulous.  
  
"What are _you_ doing, taking Muggle Studies," Ron asked Hermione, even more incredulous. “Didn’t you drop it at the end of third year?”  
  
Hermione drew a fresh leaf of parchment towards her, and began drawing up a new timetable. This time one for Harry and Ron, and he watched with a pang as Saturday afternoons became a solid block of Charms revision. "Well, I know everything on the course structure, of course, so there’s not much point in my taking the classes," Hermione said. Ron had caught on; he put down his copy of Quidditch Weekly, and watched with a look of growing dismay as Hermione devoted half of Wednesday lunchtimes to Potions homework in the library. “But if I want to work in the Muggle Liaison office, I'm going to need at least an E in Muggles Studies."  
  
"Hermione," Ron said seriously. "The Ministry's not going to care what you got for Muggle Studies. Brightest witch of our age, remember? And that year we spent taking down Voldemort. 'S worth more than fifty NEWTs any day."  
  
"Oh, well," Hermione said, cheeks pink. "Better safe than sorry -- and, you know, I just remembered," she broke off, frowning. She laid down her wand, and said, "As I was waiting outside Muggle Studies yesterday, Malfoy came up to me and said _hello_."  
  
\--  
  
And then Malfoy nodded at all three of them as they passed on the stairs leading to the Entrance Hall; he and Parkinson as they walked up, Harry, Ron, and Hermione as they walked down.  
  
Harry started keeping track of every instance Malfoy nodded, or said hello. The fourth time was as they were leaving Transfiguration; the fifth in Charms as Professor Flitwick handed out a box of needles to be vanished and resummoned into existence; the sixth as they passed by one another in front of the House Hourglasses.  
  
Each encounter brought back that same rush of blood, that same thrilling sensation, and a new, maddening desire to wrap his fingers around Malfoy's neck as he demanded answers.  
  
"He's gone mental," Ron declared.  
  
And after the seventh instance of Malfoy being polite for no good reason in the sixth floor corridor, and the eighth instance outside of the Transfigurations classroom -- Harry thought that he'd be the one going mental if this kept up.  
  
\--  
  
Sometime between fifteen and sixteen, Harry wasn't sure which -- all he knew was that Malfoy had tried to smile, looking like he was in pain -- Harry cracked.  
  
"What are you up to, Malfoy," Harry said in a low voice as they sidled between the desks in the Transfiguration classroom, towards the open crates sitting upon Professor McGonagall's desk.  
  
Malfoy had that look on his face again, the one that made Harry want to strangle him. "Collecting my frog, Potter," he said, in an impossibly bland voice as he did just that. "Professor McGonagall wants them transformed into hamsters. You know, those cute, furry things that squeak."  
  
"Not the frog," Harry said once he'd collected his own, floating it beside him as it croaked indignantly. He followed Malfoy closely as they made their way back to their desks.  
  
"I'm just being nice," Malfoy said soothingly, infuriatingly, again with that splintered smile. A vein in his jaw pulsed. And then he took a hard right to get back to his desk, and Harry was unable to pursue, not without Professor McGonagall's keen eyes noticing as she presided over the classroom.  
  
\--  
  
"Just being nice," Harry said disbelievingly when he next caught Malfoy, this time in Charms. Harry stood near Malfoy's desk under the pretense of searching for the stalks of straw he was meant to be spinning into thread, but had instead banished in the direction of Malfoy's desk.  
  
Parkinson, who was sitting at the same desk as Malfoy, kept sending Harry little nervous glances in between poking at her pile of straw with her wand.  
  
"Yes," Malfoy said shortly. Ah-hah, thought Harry grimly, still staring fixedly at the floor for the straw he wasn't actually looking to find. He knew Malfoy's facade would crack sooner or later, and his real intentions make themselves known. "What's it to you?"  
  
"It's _weird_ ," Harry said. "You're up to something."  
  
Malfoy had procured a new wand from somewhere, a long dark blur in the corner of Harry's vision. It wasn't working for Malfoy very well; Malfoy gave it a twirl, and the straw did nothing more but to stir feebly. "Well of course if the Chosen One says so, then it must be true," Malfoy snarled, and his pile of straw burst into flames.  
  
"A little less wrist, Mr Malfoy," Professor Flitwick squeaked, appearing beside them. He banished the burning pile of straw, smoke and all. "Mr Potter, are you lost?"  
  
And then Harry was sent back to his own seat, with a freshly procured pile of straw.  
  
\--  
  
After Charms, they had Potions. Malfoy sat at the back of the classroom, again with Parkinson, half hidden in shadow and looking peeved in every direction except where Harry sat with Ron and Hermione.  
  
"For today's lesson, we'll be working in pairs," Slughorn said at the front of the room, and Harry saw his chance.  
  
He did a quick count of the class, and muttered to Ron, "Is anyone looking."  
  
Hermione, sitting on the other side of Ron and staring with rapt attention as Slughorn turned to write on the blackboard, didn't hear. Ron turned his head around, and muttered back, "Nah, everyone's too busy looking at Slughorn, why -- " but Harry had already turned his wand towards Parkinson under the desk, and muttered a spell.  
  
Parkinson let out an anguished yell. The entire class turned to see her start scrabbling at her face as angry red boils started popping up along her nose, then out towards her cheeks, her forehead, and her chin. Beside her, Malfoy frantically and repeatedly cast _finite incantatem_ to no avail.  
  
"Miss Parkinson, I think you had best get to the Nurse's Wing," called Slughorn from behind his desk, sounding unconcerned.  
  
Parkinson gave a pained sob and rushed out, clutching her face. A general bubble of laughter and confusion rose and burst, and then the class turned their attention back towards Slughorn. Or whatever it was that they had been doing before as they feigned attention.  
  
Slughorn coughed. "As I was saying, this potion should be quite simple -- "  
  
Harry chanced a look around and found Malfoy staring at him, a murderous glint to his eye.  
  
" -- so if you would split up into pairs," Slughorn concluded, and made a little shooing motion.  
  
Hermione turned to face Ron and Harry. "Memory potions,” she said, looking triumphant. “This will be easy, I had to brew some over summer for my -- oh," she said, face falling as she noticed their classmates divying themselves up.  
  
"You work with Ron," Harry said hastily.  
  
"Are you sure?" Hermione asked, though relief curled around the edges of her words..  
  
Ron was looking at him shrewdly, but still said, "Yeah, you sure, mate?"  
  
"Positive," said Harry. He sat back as the rest of the class settled on their pairs, and started fetching potions materials from the storeroom cupboard.  
  
Eventually, Slughorn came ambling down the desks. "Harry, my boy," he said jovially. "Looks like you're the odd one out, eh? No matter, no matter; I'm sure you'll have no problem wrangling with this potion on your own." Two weeks into term, and Slughorn had managed to prodigiously overlook three smoking cauldrons and five passable, but still less than exemplary, potions.  
  
"Sir," Harry said. Malfoy drew level with Slughorn’s shoulder, awkwardly balancing in his arms the potions ingredients meant to be shared across two people. “Malfoy doesn’t have a partner, either.”  
  
"What? I’m sure we can find..." Slughorn said, eyes slightly frog-like as he turned and realised Malfoy was standing behind him, and then even more so as they roved around the room, taking in the neatly paired off students.  
  
“I can work by myself,” Malfoy snapped, face flushed. Slughorn stared at him. Malfoy’s mouth tightened, and he added, “Sir.”  
  
“It’s no problem, really,” Harry said, and moved his cauldron and his things onto Malfoy’s desk before either Slughorn or Malfoy could move.  
  
Slughorn looked at him hesitantly. “Well, if you’re sure, my boy…” he said, obviously waffling. Only when Harry showed no sign of moving did he wander away, sending Harry concerned looks.  
  
Malfoy seemed no more willing than Slughorn to voice his disagreements. He simply slammed the ingredients down onto the desk, and began angrily tearing up fluxweed. His mouth was pressed so tightly together that it seemed to be no more than a bloodless line in his face, and Harry’s attempts to assist were quickly snatched out of his hand. Harry, remembering the production Malfoy had made of his supposedly injured arm in third year, was more than happy to let Malfoy do all the work. Didn’t mean he planned on keeping his mouth shut, though. “So what _are_ you up to.”  
  
Malfoy, to his credit, was able to resist answering for all of thirty seconds. “I don’t know, Potter,” he said, moving his lips as little as possible. “Why don’t you list all the things you’ve found offence with, and tell me what I’ve been up to.”  
  
“You’ve been saying hello to people,” Harry said, and then realised how inane it sounded.  
  
Malfoy smiled without humour at the lacewings he was stripping of their wings. “How evil of me.”  
  
Harry floundered. “You said hello to _Hermione_.”  
  
“Still more reasonable than _hexing Pansy_.” Malfoy began ranting under his breath, never once looking up from his hands working the potion, never raising his voice louder than the hiss and crackle of the flame underneath the cauldron. “I don’t know what you want; I’ve been nice, I’ve been polite. I’ve nodded at people and tried smiling at people, even your m -- “  
  
Harry bristled.  
  
“ -- muggle friend. And you spoke for me at the Trials, and the Wizengamot let me walk free, so -- “  
  
“What?” The thrill in his stomach had turned red hot, and risen to Harry’s ears. “You don’t get the moral high ground here just because the Wizengamot -- ”  
  
“I’m not taking the _moral high ground_. I don’t care about the moral high ground.” For a single instant, Malfoy seemed to deflate. And then he rallied, “But I do care when idiots keep hexing my friends and my House.”  
  
“What?” Harry was indignant. “I’ve only hexed Parkinson _once_.”  
  
But Malfoy maintained a stony silence for the rest of the lesson, and hightailed it out the door as soon as Slughorn called the class to an end.  
  
\--  
  
"So why'd you hex Parkinson in Potions?" Ron asked  
  
Hermione put down the book she'd been reading. "That was you?" she asked. Her face was twisted halfway between reproach and approval.  
  
"Yeah, but listen," Harry said, and recounted what Malfoy had told him.  
  
Ron shifted a little at the mention of the trials, but remained silent. Then he snorted. “Well what did he expect? He let the Death Eaters loose on a bunch of kids, and Parkinson tried to hand you over to Voldemort, didn’t she? Everyone heard her.”  
  
Hermione had a considering look on her face. “He said people are hexing Slytherin?”  
  
“But they haven’t, have they?” Harry said. “We would have noticed.”  
  
“Of course,” Hermione said. She turned away to gaze at the rest of the Hall, head moving as she slowly looked from one side of the room to the other.  
  
"Bollocks," Ron said emphatically. He speared a sausage with his fork for emphasis. “It’s all a load of bollocks.”  
  
\--  
  
Harry was inclined to agree. “Don't you ever get tired of lying for attention?”  
  
Malfoy’s eyebrows pulled together. Voice tight, he said, “Potter, I want my guinea fowl back. The one I’m charming to lay golden eggs.”  
  
“I reckon your House hasn’t been getting Hexed at all,” Harry ploughed on. “I haven’t seen a single Slytherin hexed once.”  
  
“I find it very strange that my guinea fowl just managed to fly straight to your desk without flapping its wings even once,” Malfoy continued. He yanked the bird out of Harry’s hands. Hermione watched with undisguised interest; Ron with scorn. "And look harder."  
  
\--  
  
Harry looked. He found nothing. Not a Stinging Hex, Pimple Jinx, or even a Tickling Hex.  
  
“Should have known Malfoy was just lying,” Harry fumed to Hermione and Ron over dinner. “Of course no-one’s hexing Slytherins.”  
  
“What?” Ginny slid onto the bench beside Harry. Harry awkwardly shuffled to the side to make room. They’d only exchanged the odd word here and there, ever since that day during Summer where Ginny pulled Harry into her room at the Burrow, and told him they had drifted apart and were done. And Harry who had no evidence to the contrary, had nodded dumbly. “Of course they are. They’re just not hexing them in front of you.”  
  
“What?” Hermione echoed. She frowned at Ginny. “You’ve never told me this.”  
  
“When was I meant to tell you? You’ve been stuck to Ron’s side all year.”  
  
Ron rose to Hermione’s defence. “Where have _you_ been all year then?”  
  
“I’ve trying to get the Quidditch team together, haven’t I?” Ginny’s Quidditch Captain badge gleamed on her chest. “Which you’d know, if Eighth Years were allowed to play.”  
  
Ron was looking between GInny and Harry. “Oh yeah? So what’s this about Dennis Creevey?” Ron demanded, red creeping up his neck. “What happened to Michael Corner?”  
  
“None of your business, for one,” Ginny said, helping herself to some mash. “But Creevey’s turning out to be a surprisingly good Keeper. Doesn’t lose his head when people in the stands talk in voices louder than a whisper, like a certain _someone_ I know,” she said, and grinned at Harry as Ron made a choking noise.  
  
Harry smiled back at her. He waited for the fluttering in his chest that used to accompany Ginny’s smiles, and was left waiting. He turned away. Across the Hall, first, second, and third years were scattered in loose groups, talking animatedly and looking small. Even the seventh years, for all that they had survived a year of the Carrows, had a slightness to them. “Why aren’t they hexing Slytherins in front of me?”  
  
“And how come Ron and I haven’t heard anything about it?” Hermione said sharply. Like Ron, her face was flushed red. “There have been plenty of times I haven’t been with Ron or Harry, like when I’ve been moving between classes, or going to the library.”  
  
Ginny shrugged. “Harry spoke for a whole bunch of Slytherins at the Trials, right? Not that anyone knows what he said, ‘cause the Trials were closed for everyone of school age,” she added a little bitterly. Harry knew that Ginny knew that he’d told Hermione and Ron what he’d said at the Trials. “But it’s not like you’ve talked to any of them since, so people don’t know what to make of it. And the three of you basically come in a set.”  
  
Ron shrugged and turned back to his dinner. Hermione frowned thoughtfully, but simply asked Ginny about her NEWTs. And Harry, who found it ridiculous that the rest of the school could be thinking that he was taking sides, or that there were still even sides to take, didn't give too much thought to Ginny's words.  
  
\--  
  
And then a first year stumbled and fell by their feet the next day as they were moving between classes. The first year dropped to the floor, scrambling to stop the contents of his bag from making their escape. As Ron and Hermione gathered rolls of parchment, Harry picked up a pair of scales that had bounced their way across the corridor floor. “Here,” he said, handing it back.  
  
The first year raised his head, and Harry recognised him as a first year. “Th -- thanks,” the first-year stuttered, and Harry recognised him to be a Slytherin. Harry shrugged in acknowledgement, and the four of them parted ways. That was a Tuesday morning.  
  
On Wednesday, he thought he saw a flash of black behind him as he turned the corner. When he turned around, all he saw was a corridor of students scrambling towards their respective destinations. On Thursday, that flash had become a solid blot, but he only turned in time to see a flash of school robes darting around the corner.  
  
But by Friday, he was sure.  
  
\--  
  
Saturday found Harry pulling Malfoy into a classroom on the abandoned third room corridor and pushing him up against the door. As Malfoy tried to shake his arm out of Harry's grip, eyes wide, Harry demanded, "Did you put them up to this?"  
  
"Put who up to what?" Malfoy said shakily. He shook his arm more insistently. "I haven't been putting anyone up to anything."  
  
There was a knock on the door. "Draco, when Potter releases you from his clutches, I'll be in the library, at the tables behind the Arithmancy books."  
  
Malfoy twisted around. "Theo!" he yelled frantically, but Nott's footsteps were already fading away.  
  
Harry gave Malfoy's arm a little shake. "Answer the question, Malfoy."  
  
Malfoy ignored him. "How did you even know I'd be here?" Malfoy demanded. "No one ever uses this corridor."  
  
The Marauder's Map, not like Harry would tell Malfoy that. "Slytherins, Malfoy! Why do they keep following me."  
  
"Like you haven't followed Slytherins yourself -- alright, alright!" Malfoy said hastily as Harry squeezed his arm warningly. "Look, that first-year you helped -- people have been laying off him ever since. And if my House feels like cowering in the shadows of the great Saviour because they think they’ll be safe if He breathes on them, then so what."  
  
\--  
  
"You pulled Malfoy into a classroom?" asked Hermione. They sat in the common room, unfinished essays lying forgotten on the tables before them.  
  
"So that's where you were!" said Ron. "And to think, I spent the entire morning trapped up here slaving over -- er." Ron quailed slightly under Hermione's glower.  
  
"It doesn't make any sense," Harry said irritably. "So everyone's picking on Slytherins, but not where I can see. But the moment I'm nice to them, they start being nice to the Slytherins as well? Again, not where I can see. What does it matter whether I'm nice to the Slytherins or not?"  
  
"Because people are sheep," Hermione said darkly. "And they're content to do as you do."  
  
"So you're saying that I should be nice to Slytherins," Harry said.  
  
"That's not what I'm saying at all," Hermione said.  
  
\--  
  
"So you're going to start being nice to the ferret now?" Ron said.  
  
"You don't have to come with me," said Harry, and turned away in the direction of the Slytherin table.  
  
Malfoy's eyes bulged comically in his face as Harry sat down opposite him. Beside him, Parkinson gave Harry a fleeting glance, and hurriedly turned back to her pumpkin juice.  
  
There was no thud of bags against wood, and Harry knew without looking that Hermione and Ron hadn't followed.  
  
To his right, Nott lowered his Daily Prophet. "Gryffindor table's over there, Potter. It's the one with your friends. Wouldn't you much prefer to be sitting with them?"  
  
"Nah, I think I'm comfortable here, thanks," Harry said, and received for his trouble the most excruciatingly boring breakfast he'd ever experienced. Nott ignored him from behind his paper; Parkinson alternatively pretended he wasn't there, and whispered asides to Malfoy; and there was Malfoy himself, who stared Harry down over the sausages wordlessly. Along the Slytherin table, students were sending looks of confusion. Behind him, Harry could hear a low murmur building in intensity throughout the Hall.  
  
No different to any other year at Hogwarts, really.  
  
\--  
  
In Herbology, Harry made a point of floating earmuffs over to Malfoy and his friends. In Potions, he stood back so that Malfoy could get to the ingredients cabinet first. In Charms, he froze a pumpkin before it could knock Malfoy out as it swelled eagerly and vigorously into the size of a pumpkin.  
  
And every morning, Harry sat at the Slytherin table, just as every morning he found himself needing the very carafe of pumpkin juice sitting by Malfoy's elbow, so could you pass it over, _please?_  
  
Every act earned a twitch of confusion that readily boiled into heated glares of suspicion, even as Malfoy awkwardly proffered an awkward gesture of appreciation. A nod, or a word.  
  
And Harry took to wandering the abandoned third floor corridor when he wasn't in class, and had managed to slip away from the clutches of Hermione and her study timetable.  
  
On a Wednesday morning, when the rest of the school save the Eighth Years were in class, and he was contemplating the warmth of the fire in Gryffindor tower as he made his fifth pass of the third floor corridor, a hand shot out and dragged him into the classroom.  
  
"What do you think you've been doing, Potter," Malfoy snarled. He stood red-faced, hair and robes dishevelled, hands balled into fists. “All this -- _helping_.”  
  
"I'm just trying to be nice," Harry said blandly. His heart raced.  
  
"And what use would the Saviour have of being nice," Malfoy said sourly.  
  
"I dunno," Harry said. That thrill was back, familiar and unfamiliar, strumming in his fingertips. "I’m just being nice.”  
  
Malfoy narrowed his eyes. "So we're _just being nice_ to each other?" Malfoy said slowly.  
  
"Yeah," said Harry.  
  
Malfoy opened his mouth to speak, and then snapped it shut. Whatever it was he had planned to say, he instead said, "Fine."  
  
Harry frowned. The red anger in Malfoy's face had given way to a pink flush. Malfoy almost looked like he was...glowing. In the face of the apparent evaporation of Malfoy’s anger, Harry felt clumsy, and on the back foot. "Fine?"  
  
"Fine," Malfoy said, and left, a definite swish to his steps and his robes.  
  
\--  
  
“Potter!” Malfoy cried in greeting that Thursday morning. Nott, who had until now been politely ignoring him, looked up in interest as Harry sat at the Slytherin table for breakfast.  
  
A happy Malfoy was a suspicious Malfoy. Harry pulled the plate of sausages towards himself, eyeing Malfoy warily. “Morning.”  
  
Parkinson was smirking slightly at her crumpets.  
  
From his robes, Malfoy brandished a squat glass jar. “I've a present for you -- Sleekeazy's Hair Potion," Malfoy declared. "If you insist on sitting at the Slytherin table for breakfast, you need to at least look presentable."  
  
\--  
  
"Maybe he thinks he's being funny?" said Ron.  
  
"I think he's being malicious," said Hermione.  
  
\--  
  
And then the next morning:  
  
"Dittany!" Malfoy threw something small and green at Harry's head. When Harry caught it, he found that it was a stoppered vial half the size of his index finger. "For that ugly great scar of yours."  
  
\--  
  
"I think he's trying to be funny _and_ malicious," said Harry.  
  
\--  
  
Harry returned the vial of dittany the next morning. "You sure you don't need this yourself? I seem to remember you moaning about a hippogriff taking out half your arm in third year."  
  
Nott lowered his paper to peer at Harry. And then, just as quickly, the paper rose to cover his face again, as though it had never been otherwise.  
  
\--  
  
In the mornings, Harry sat at the Slytherin table. At lunch and at dinner, Harry sat at the Gryffindor table. And in the hours between, he and Malfoy traded niceties as they would barbs.  
  
"It's not like we're _friends_ ," Harry said to Ron over lunch. He was fuming slightly; Malfoy had gotten him a subscription to Witch Weekly so that he could, "See what the press is saying about you. You like the attention, don't you, Potter?" Until he could figure out how to cancel it, he was going to be visited by an irate looking screech owl with a fondness for flesh every morning for the forseeable future.  
  
"Yeah, but _every_ morning?" asked Ron. He threw a glance towards where Hermione was talking animatedly to Ginny, leaned close and hissed, "Hermione's been trying to get me to start revising during breakfast. Breakfast! All this studying's driving me mental."  
  
"Should've thought of that before you started dating her, then," said Harry absently, his thoughts turning to the Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes mail order form that Hermione had confiscated from a sketchy looking first year that morning.  
  
\--  
  
His order didn't arrive until the morning of the Thursday after. Moments after the Witch Weekly's scrappy, nippy screech owl had left with a final go at Harry's fingers, a handsome barn owl landed in front of Malfoy, shook a package loose from its talons, and took off.  
  
Malfoy, who had been laughing as Harry shook his fingers, took one glance at the lurid green Wheezly Wizarding Wheezes wrapping paper, and stilled. "I don't shop there anymore," Malfoy said quickly.  
  
Harry made a show of looking at the addressee scrawled on the package. "It's addressed to you," he said. "Maybe you should open it."  
  
Malfoy had a hitched a smile on his face, and his shoulder into a nonchalant shrug. Neither seemed to be sitting well on him. "Why not," he said. "It's addressed to me, after all."  
  
Opened, the packaging fell open to reveal a sneakoscope, perfectly balanced and gleaming.  
  
"Thought you might need some help when it comes to choosing friends, and all," said Harry. "Since half of yours are in Azkaban."  
  
Malfoy was gazing at the sneakoscope, his head tilted forward so that the crest of his styled blonde hair hid his eyes from view. Beside him, Parkinson shot Harry a glare. Nott shook his paper.  
  
"I can't be doing that badly, if the Saviour himself is gracing me with his presence," Malfoy eventually said. He raised his head. His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.  
  
\--  
  
"Well, it's not like you were friends," said Ron.  
  
Breakfasts at the Slytherin table had grown so stilted that Harry had given up in disgust, and returned to the Gryffindor table. Malfoy had turned obliquely polite, much like he had been at the beginning of term; Harry hadn't realised how open Malfoy had become until he no longer was.  
  
Beside Ron, Hermione tutted from behind her book. "Just think of how much more time you'll have to -- " she broke off with a cry as something dark shot down low over the table, and dropped something into the cereal bowl.  
  
Harry looked up, and saw an eagle owl winging its way up and out of the Great Hall. Not a familiar one, but Harry had only ever known a single individual at Hogwarts to own an eagle owl.  
  
In the cereal bowl sat a small parcel, neatly wrapped in twine and yellowed parchment. A stocky script announced that it was addressed to Ron.  
  
"What the hell," said Ron, and reached for the parcel. When he pulled on the twine, Jellied Slugs started crawling their way out of the crumbling packaging.  
  
Ron looked at them, looked at Harry, and then looked at Hermione. And then they turned, as one, in the direction of the Slytherin table.  
  
Malfoy gave a jaunty wave.  
  
\--  
  
After the third consecutive morning of Malfoy's eagle owl swooping down, a package of Jellied Slugs clutched in its talons, Hermione conjured a bucket.  
  
“I don't think I've had a meal unmolested by that stupid owl of his all week,” said Ron. He reached into the bucket, pulled out a slug, and bit off its head. The bucket sat on the table between them, its contents a squirming, multicoloured mass.  
  
Hermione was looking at Harry. "I didn't think you'd be this bothered."  
  
"I'm not bothered," said Harry irritably. He turned to Ron. "I thought you'd be more hacked off."  
  
Ron shrugged. "If Malfoy wants to waste his Galleons buying me sweets, let 'im," he said. "Anyway, it just proves that once a git, always a git, dunnit?"  
  
Harry frowned. "Doesn't explain what he's up to by being nice, though."  
  
Hermione shook her head.  
  
"What?" Harry said.  
  
"Well, it's just," Hermione said slowly. "I don't think Malfoy's that complex. I think he wanted to turn a new leaf after the War and the Trials but started falling back on his old ways, and simply got in over his head as he tried to juggle the two, and is now sulking."  
  
But that didn't explain the impossible feeling that Harry felt whenever he saw Malfoy. Harry opened his mouth to argue, and then he realised he didn't have the words to explain that strange thrum that would start up in his gut. That feeling of mingled anticipation, and discontentment.  
  
"Yeah," he said. "Maybe."  
  
\--  
  
The school year continued apace. Lessons became quieter and more focussed as the reality of NEWTs set in. Quieter still were Malfoy and his friends, who lurked at the edges of the classrooms. Outside of lessons, Hermione had taken to trailing off mid-conversation, and frantically whipping out a book to check a fact.  
  
Restless, Harry took to wandering the school when his wrist started aching after writing countless inches of parchment, and looking at textbooks only made the words swim before his eyes. His feet took him the Astronomy Tower, which had been cordoned off, and to the seventh floor corridor, where a scorch mark in the wall marked where the Room of Requirement had once been. And his feet kept taking him back to the third floor corridor, where occasionally he'd pop his head around the door that led to the room that used to house Fluffy, forgetting time after time that the room was long disused and dusty, and that the trapdoor at the centre of the room was rusted over.  
  
It was a coincidence then, that he was in the third floor corridor when he heard a scuffling noise from behind a classroom door. A year of being on the run and hard-won instinct had him ducking into Fluffy's room, leaving the door open a crack. After a few minutes of waiting, he saw the door to the classroom open, and Malfoy and Nott emerge.  
  
Both looked a little ruffled, but Harry didn't think much of it until Nott placed his hand on the back of Malfoy's neck in an easy, affectionate gesture. Malfoy shrugged, and Nott's hand slipped away down his back, but the damage had already been done; Harry had already recognised the punch in his stomach as the echoes of that same peculiar sensation he had felt in fourth year, when he had tripped through that tapestry to see Ginny kissing Dean.  
  
\--  
  
"Not this way," said Harry. "Let's take that door there, the one that looks like a wall."  
  
"What? But Defence is on the fifth floor," said Ron. "Why -- oh look, it's the ferret."  
  
"I'm taking that door," Harry said, and turned towards it, but not before he saw Hermione looking at him thoughtfully.  
  
\--  
  
Sunday found Harry sitting in the Quidditch stands, the setting sun dying Ginny's broom a golden red as she stripped it of bedraggled bristles. Ginny said, "Thanks for helping out with training. Especially since the Harpies' scouts are coming down for the next game."  
  
"I'm always happy to help," Harry said truthfully, even though flying with the team and knowing that he would never again Seek for Gryffindor opened a yearning pit in his stomach.  
  
Ginny said, "So why are you avoiding Hermione."  
  
"What," said Harry. "No, I'm not."  
  
"Yes, you are," said Ginny. "Hermione told me so herself."  
  
Probably because Hermione had taken to levelling speculative looks in his direction. "I don’t have any reason to be avoiding Hermione."  
  
"And that's why you're still here with me, and not up with them in the common room where it's warm." Ginny shook her head back, letting her hair fall in loose waves over her shoulder. "You know, you never sent me a single Owl after the War."  
  
Harry shifted uncomfortably. "I just needed some time."  
  
Ginny smiled at him, in a sad, understanding kind of way. "I know that. But then you started sending Owls to Ron and Hermione, but not to me, and then you were busy with the Trials. And it’s not like you seemed that devastated when I said we should break up."  
  
Harry frowned out over the Quidditch grounds, gloomily thinking about how he _hadn’t_ been devastated. And that was the problem wasn’t it, that’d he’d gone off, and come back, feeling ragged and strange, while Ginny remained as beautiful as ever. And then he hadn’t known what about her, or with her, and then it was too late.  
  
Ginny added, "You’re not really that good at emotions. If you just talked to Hermione about whatever's -- "  
  
"No."  
  
Ginny shrugged and started packing away her broom repair kit. "Now I can tell Hermione I tried."  
  
\--  
  
Of course he couldn't just talk to Hermione. What was he meant to tell her, that he thought he fancied Malfoy?  
  
\--  
  
Or, he thought later, as he rolled up the Marauder's Map after checking it the third time that day and seeing that Malfoy spent no more time in Nott's company than Parkinson's. He could just deal with the matter head on.  
  
\--  
  
Wednesday saw him in the third floor corridor classroom, lying in wait. Sure enough, Malfoy came down the corridor two minutes past the hour. It was as simple as waiting for him to draw close to the classroom door, shooting out a hand, and dragging him in.  
  
"What the -- " Malfoy snarled, face flushed with fury. And then his face went tight, and, "Potter. I'm actually quite busy, so if you'd -- "  
  
Harry was able to track the exact moment Malfoy noticed the hawthorn wand that he held in his right hand by the widening of Malfoy's eyes as they lit up with confusion, then hope, and then wary suspicion. Harry said, "That'd be a pity, 'cause I actually have something to give you."  
  
"And what would that be?" Malfoy's eyes betrayed him; they slid in the direction of the hawthorn wand, before snapping back abruptly to Harry's face. Then they narrowed. "What do you want, Potter?"  
  
"Maybe I'm just being nice," Harry snapped. He thrust his right hand forward.  
  
Malfoy didn't move to take the wand. "Yes, because you were so nice before."  
  
"Do you want your wand back or not," Harry said, impatient. He started to lower his hand.  
  
Malfoy snatched his wand back so quickly that Harry's fingers felt raw, like the varnished wood had somehow managed to coarsen and drag against his skin as it was abruptly pulled away. "No, I think I will -- " Malfoy broke off as sparks shot out from the end of the hawthorn wand. The tiniest flutterings of warmth wormed their way up through Harry's stomach towards his chest at the look of wonder in Malfoy’s eyes as he started conjuring golden spheres about the size of an orange, glowing softly and warmly as they floated towards the ceiling.  
  
When Malfoy had conjured so many golden spheres that they were jostling for space as they crowded out the ceiling, he lowered his wand. "Thank you," Malfoy said, voice hushed and eyes soft. He cleared his throat, and then said in a high, stilted voice, “Well, Potter, now that you’ve given my wand back, I really have no obligation to -- ”  
  
“Why do you think I want something from you,” Harry demanded.  
  
Malfoy had shoved his wand into his pocket, as though it would somehow prevent Harry from taking it back. “Because, Potter,” he said, anger making his words choppy. “Nothing you’ve done this year’s made a lick of sense. Why did you start being nice to me?”  
  
“Why were _you_ being nice?”  
  
“Maybe I was honestly just trying to be nice, Scarhead!” Malfoy had turned red-faced.  
  
“And the Sleekeazy? The Dittany? The Slugs?” Harry demanded.  
  
“Maybe I wasn’t sure what to do, Potter! Maybe I wasn’t sure if you were just pretending to be nice to me, or if you actually just still hate me!”  
  
“Well, maybe I actually like you!” Harry shouted.  
  
Malfoy stared at him. And then let out a bark of laughter. “What?” he said, disbelieving. “Don’t be ridiculous.”  
  
“Why is it so ridiculous,” Harry said, feeling foolish. “I spoke for you at the the Trials, didn’t I?”  
  
Malfoy had paled a little at the mention of the Trials. “So? You’re a Gryffindor, aren’t you? Figure of truth and light and all that rot. So it’s not you could lie about my…”  
  
“Not being all that evil,” supplied Harry.  
  
“Not being...all that evil,” Malfoy said, still looking a little pale. He shook himself. “And anyway, why would I believe you? Why would _you_ like _me_?”  
  
Harry was no closer to knowing the answer than he had been that day in the third floor corridor, peaking out from behind the door to Fluffy's room. "I don’t know. Maybe… it was just that. The fact you weren’t all that evil, and trying to change.”  
  
Malfoy frowned at him. “So you’re not making fun of me?” he said slowly. He took a step forward. Another step, and Harry could smell the faintest stirrings of something flowery, but underpinned by a masculine smokiness. “You actually like me?”  
  
“Yeah,” Harry said, mouth dry.  
  
Malfoy took another step, and this close Harry could feel the warmth and solidness of Malfoy’s chest through their robes. Malfoy stopped, an eyebrow cocked in challenge, but somehow still nervous. There was something like hope in his eyes. Harry wanted to see more of it.  
  
Harry closed the gap between them, kissed him fleetingly, and then just as quickly drew back.  
  
Malfoy had his pale grey eyes open wide. Tiny flecks of gold in his eyes that Harry had never noticed from afar, gleaming disbelievingly but joyfully. Malfoy licked his lips. “Okay, then,” he said, and kissed Harry back.  
  
\--  
  
Afterwards, Malfoy said, “Are we still just being nice to one another?”  
  
They were both lying on the floorboards. Malfoy had turned his face to the side, pressed against the ground so that he could look at Harry. Harry looked back, taking in the way Malfoy’s fine, pale hair glowed by the light of the golden spheres floating high above. Harry thought of all the times they had run into each other over the years, all the hexes, the hurled insults, the history. And Harry thought of that last moment that he had seen Malfoy during the Trials, the two of them in an empty, darkened corridor in the Ministry, and Malfoy’s first, awkward, stilted nod of thanks. “I don’t think we could ever just be nice to one another.”  
  
Malfoy rolled his head away to look up towards the ceiling. He started to get up. Without thinking, Harry shot out a hand. Malfoy, perched on his elbows, looked at where Harry’s hand grasped his arm. “Oh,” Malfoy said. He settled back down, and Harry loosened his grip. Malfoy slowly reached his hand towards Harry’s, and, cautiously, tangled his fingers through Harry’s. He squeezed. Harry squeezed back. “I can live with that.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

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